Hugh Edwards |

American, 1904–1986

Hugh Edwards

Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photography,

the Art Institute of Chicago

Hugh Edwards was one of the most influential, yet least known, photography curators in America. During his time at the Art Institute, he worked with remarkable enthusiasm and prescience to build the museum’s photography collection and expand its exhibition program, acquiring some three thousand works and organizing seventy-five shows. In a field that was still young, Edwards helped to shape institutional practices and the public’s understanding of photography in Chicago as well as across the country.

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EXHIBITIONS | ACQUISITIONS | WRITINGS | MEDIA

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Edwards was the first curator to bring nineteenth-century photographs into the museum’s collection, adding rare prints, albums, and cased images in order to expose the public to photography’s early history.
MODERN CLASSICS

As he built the collection and enacted a new program of exhibitions, Edwards made sure to include some of the twentieth century’s best-known photographers.

CHICAGO/INSTITUTE OF DESIGN

Edwards gave key support to a wide range of Chicago photographers, with special attention to recent graduates of the city’s famed Institute of Design.
EMERGING ARTISTS

Edwards actively sought out young talent and took chances on artists early in their careers, often mounting their first one-person exhibitions.

TWENTY HE CHAMPIONED

Through his exhibitions, acquisitions, and writings, Edwards furthered the careers of many photographers, twenty of whom are examined here.

Dave Heath, Hugh Edwards, Curator of Photography, the Chicago Art Institute, 1964 © Estate of Dave Heath; Alexander Gardner, What Do I Want, John Henry?, November 1862; Lewis Wickes Hine, Sadie Pfeifer, a Cotton Mill Spinner, Lancaster, South Carolina, 1908; Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Untitled, 1948/60. © Kochi Prefecture, Yasuhiro Ishimoto Photo Center; Danny Lyon, Schererville, Indiana, 1965. © Danny Lyon; Robert Frank, Covered Car, Long Beach, California, 1955/56. © Robert Frank, from The Americans. Courtesy of Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York